MICHEL VAN DER BURG

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Isabella Weinreb Castegnier was three-months pregnant that night on April 1943 in Belgium, when she jumped from the fast moving 20th Train heading for Auschwitz. Isabella escaped with a broken wrist and bruises all over her body, but otherwise without major injuries. Her daughter Viviane – meaning “full of life”, and named so for her will to live and hold tight in her mother’s womb – was born six months later on October 30, 1943.

Last month, Viviane first learned about our documentary “Transport XX to Auschwitz” and e-mailed me…”I couldn’t believe while searching online that I would find an actual movie made, telling the story of this famous, unique escape from a death-train!” After watching the documentary, she wrote to me “it was so well-made…I even wished it were longer”…Viviane also shared with me that at one point in the film, she got tears in her eyes, as her mother’s face appeared in a flash on the screen, while Lilly (Wolkenfeld Schwartz) – her mother’s friend was telling the story…”and Bella jumped” … this was so unexpected, she said “it took me by surprise!”

One year ago – on Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 7, 2013 – her mother passed away at the age of 93.

Today, 71 years after that unique escape, on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2014, and her mother’s yahrzeit, Viviane shares her story below.

France. Dec 2012. Isabella Weinreb Castegnier.

Escape from Transport XX – to be born 6 months later

My mother – Isabella Weinreb Castegnier, became the No. 1153 on this day in 1943 when she was herded on a truck with Jews, Gypsies, and other criminals or “unwanted” according to Nazis’ doctrine. The truck was heading to the Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen – the transit camp the Germans used for direct transports from Belgium to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, prisoners were deprived of their identiy and all personal belongings. They were assigned tags with numbers to wear on their neck. For the Nazis they were not humans… just a crowd of cattle to be slaughtered.

My mother was hopeless, she was pregnant and aware that in her condition there was not much chance for her survival, she knew she was doomed…unless she could escape from the death train! And indeed, she would do that on this fateful night of April 19, 1943 when she jumped off the cattle-train heading to Auschwitz. She survived…and I was born six months later!

Fleeing from Germany…

My mother was born in Frankfurt-am-Main on November 2, 1919. Her parents were Jews from Poland. They immigrated to Germany during WWI. Some of their family members would later move to Belgium and Holland. My mother and her parents left Frankfurt at the start of 1937 as it became unsafe for Jews to stay in Germany.

Belgium…

My mother, her parents and her sister moved to Antwerp where their relatives resided. My mother was then 16 year old. She joined the ‘Betar’ – a Jewish Zionist Youth organization, in the hopes that one day she would immigrate with her group to Palestine…a dream which would not materialize.

Arrests and deportation…

My mother and her family stayed in Antwerp until the German’s invasion of Belgium in May 1940. By the end of that year they were transferred with other Jewish families to rural areas in the province of Limburg. In the middle of 1941, the Jews who had been expelled earlier to Limburg were now forced to relocate again to cities designated by the Germans. My mother and her father settled in Brussels, while her mother and sister went to the city of Liege, where they had found employment in a convent under the protection of the Catholic Church. My mother became a sales representative for pharmaceutical-dental products. Subsequently she would meet my father who was a dentist, also in Brussels.

Belgium. 1940s. Isabella Weinreb.

In January 1943 – my grandfather, Leo (Leib) Yehuda Weinreb, was arrested in Brussels and deported to Auschwitz on a transport from Mechelen. Around that time, at the beginning of 1943, my parents decided to get married. My mother never thought of going into hiding, she believed that she would be safe with my father – a Belgian citizen, not Jewish, with Catholic roots.

My parents were arrested on their wedding day, and with them, the entire wedding party was booked for inquiry, including the officials who had performed the ceremony. Most likely an informer had denounced them to the German police. My parents were not aware of the German laws regarding “mixed/Jewish marriages.”…They imprisoned my father in the notorious Gestapo headquarters at Avenue Louise in Brussels and punished him for marrying a Jew. While he was beaten in their cells, my mother was transferred to the Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, in order to be deported later. Luckily for my father, he would be released from jail after a short time, thanks to a family friend who had affiliations with the German administration.

Kazerne Dossin – collecting camp of Mechelen…

Isabella became a number…no.1153, bound to be deported on the 20th Transport to the death camp of Auschwitz. But she was determined not to get there, she knew she had to escape, it was her only chance. Shortly after her arrival in Dossin, my father’s family had submitted a request for her release, on the grounds that she was pregnant and married to a Belgian citizen from a Catholic family. They knew a few people of influence in the German government who could intervene, but unfortunately, their petition failed. My mother was summoned to the camp’s commander who stated gleefully: “Your husband was a fool to think that I would ever release a pregnant Jewess, and be assured that you and your offspring, you both will be exterminated!”

As she was reminded once again of her dreadful upcoming fate, my mother decided it was time to join other detainees who had also plans of jumping off the train. With her friend Lilly she started to organize jumping drills. She and Lilly were training women who were afraid, by teaching them to jump from the highest bunk beds, so that they could be prepared when they would have to escape from a moving train. There were also children who took part in those exercises. One of them was Simon Gronowski, a brave 11-year old boy, whom they called “le petit Simon” (little Simon) and who was practicing jumps with other kids.

On April 19, 1943, the first night of Passover, Transport XX departed from the barracks in Mechelen with people crammed in cattle-wagons. This time the Germans didn’t use the passengers’ wagons as in previous transports, but instead, they opted for wooden box-cars with tiny ventilations and doors reinforced with barbed wire, which would prevent all attempts to escape. The transport left Mechelen in the late evening for its destination, when at one point, it started stalling, then suddenly stopped. My mother would say that she could hear shouts in German and shots coming from the area of the locomotive. It sounded like the train had come under attack.

My mother (no.1153) and her friend Lilly (no.1152) were both huddled in the same wagon. They were planning to jump off the train as soon as possible, before it would reach over the border to Germany. Each wagon was equipped with a bucket and a broom, the Germans always caring for cleanliness. Possibly the broom had been used to open the door, or perhaps a sharp tool that some people had managed to hide and carry from the camp. My mother could not remember clearly how they had succeeded in making that door open, from inside or outside? She wasn’t sure. But she did tell another story about the broom…how they had dressed it up with a man’s coat and a hat, then held outside the door to use as a decoy for the soldiers who were guarding the train. They were expecting the German guards to shoot at that “broom”… but if the Germans were not responding, it would be the signal that it was safe for them to jump.

People in her wagon then began to jump…taking turns… my mother too was getting ready…but when came her turn, she froze, overcome by a sudden fear, it was dark and the train started to pick up speed. While she was trying to regain control of herself, she felt someone pushing her from behind…and finally she got the courage to jump. Bullets were flying around but didn’t hit her. She rolled down the ravine, then run to hide in the nearby bushes. She had a broken wrist, bruises over her face and legs, but no major injuries. It was amazing that she had not miscarried from that fall and remained pregnant…I was holding tight in my mother’s womb!

The next morning, when it was safe to move out of her hiding spot in the woods, my mother went to the nearest tram station to catch the trolley to Brussels and reunite with my father. Then came the Gestapo again!…they were searching the tram for escapees. She was terrified! She was hiding her swollen hand in the pocket of her coat, afraid they would ask her to take it out. Luckily the men passed her by and did not pay attention. She finally arrived to the tram station in Brussels, feeling so weak and hungry that the first thing she did was to find a bakery and eat her favorite pastries…(she always had a sweet tooth!) Then she allowed herself to call my father who could not believe she had escaped and returned home…he thought he was seeing a ghost!

Born…

Couple months later, about three weeks before I was born, the police came to my father’s house to look for “Isabella Weinreb who had escaped”…My mother had already a new identity, therefore my father pretended she was “not the same wife, but a new one, since the other one he thought had died”…a story the policeman did not believe, but since this man was not a German, just a Belgian cop who was in a good disposition toward my father, he decided to do no harm, just said “you are lucky that my colleague didn’t come with me today, because he is a Gestapo officer and he would have taken this woman away.”

Couple weeks after this frightful event, my mother gave birth safely at home…six months after her escape, on October 30, 1943…my father named me Viviane, meaning “full of life”!

Belgium ca. 1948. Viviane and her parents on the walk board at the seaside.

After the war…

My parents stayed in Brussels after the war…my father lived in Belgium until his death in 1986. My mother moved to the South of France when she was in her 80’s, wishing to live near her daughter (my younger sister)…and there she would remain in a retirement home until she passed away.

As to myself, I spent my childhood in Belgium, where like my mother, I belonged to a Jewish Zionist Youth organization and fulfilled my mother’s dream to live in Israel. At age 20, I went to live on a kibbutz, joining my grandmother and aunt who had immigrated to Israel after the war.

With my family (husband and children) we moved to Los Angeles in 1980 where I’ve been living since. I am now retired, taking care of my grandchildren, telling them the story of my mother, their unique, brave great-grandmother…and my own story, as the youngest survivor of the Twentieth Train!

NEWS

April 19, 2018. Full of Life … Escape from Transport XX
① memo 20180419 ~ Full of Life … Escape from Transport XX ~ Today 75 years ago , that night of April 19th, 1943 in Belgium , Elias Gnazik helped jump the pregnant Isabella Weinreb from the fast moving 20th train heading for Auschwitz. Viviane – meaning ‘full of life’ – was born 6 months later.
Discussion – moderated by Ingrid Vander Veken – of Simone Korkus’ dutch book “Het dienstmeisje van Degrelle” on 15 oktober 2017 in Kazerne Dossin , Mechelen , Belgium.
This new short film (with english captions / partly english spoken) highlights our discussion in that ‘Literary Cafe’ on Oct. 15, 2017 in Kazerne Dossin, of Elias’ rescue of Isabella and Viviane ; it continues with our visit later to the Kazerne Dossin portrait wall (portrait’s of deported people) with Simone Korkus and Jan Maes (the first to point Simone to Hannah’s story) ; and ends with me having a short improvised talk in english with a visitor’s couple .> Full report here :https://wp.me/p14gqN-niQ

The attack on this deportation train in Belgium – by three young men – the rescue, and the many escapes and escape attemps are documented in this film.

Today 70 years ago – on the night of April 19, 1943 – this remarkable heroic rescue occured in Belgium, were 17 people were liberated during an attack on the cattle car train ‘Transport XX’ – crammed with 1631 Jewish passengers, heading for Auschwitz – and another more than 200 others jumped out also.

As of April 19, 2015 the orginal version of the film is replaced above with a new – second – edition of the documentary with updated statistics.

For free watching this new (second) version of our film directly at YouTube follow one of these 2 links : youtu.be oryoutube.com

During the Nazi occupation of Belgium 28 train convoys with over 25,000 Jews and 351 Roma left Mechelen towards the Auschwitz extermination camp.
On the night of April 19, 1943, the 20th transport headed East with 1631 Jewish passengers crammed into 40 cattle cars.
This ‘Transport XX’ left the Mechelen transit camp ‘Kazerne Dossin’ at 10 pm. and was attacked and stopped some 30 minutes later outside Brussels – near Boortmeerbeek.
Armed with only 1 pistol, pliers and an improvised red hurricane lamp the three young Belgians Robert Maistriau, Jean Franklemon, and Youra Livschitz – old schoolmates – stopped the train by putting the red lamp in the middle of rails. They were able to open one of the cattle cars and liberated 17 men and women. Another more than 200 prisoners escape from the train before the German border. Many were shot and 26 were killed. Eventually, half of them succeeded to escape.

The attack, rescue, and many escapes and escape attemps from this 20th deportation train in Belgium are documented in this newly released film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” by the first-hand accounts of one of the attackers, people that jumped from the train and survivors who returned from Auschwitz.
This attack by three young man, who follow their heart, is the only documented attack on a death train during the Shoah.

The film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” documents the attack and rescue story of one of the attackers, Robert Maistriau, and several escape attempts and escapes of the deportees: Régine Krochmal, Louis de Groot and his brother, the 11 year old Simon Gronowski, Lilly Wolkenfeld Schwartz and her friends, Gunther and Marie Mendel, Willy Berler, Louis Micheels who as doctor in charge of patients decided not trying to escape – and others…

Régine Krochmal had been active in the resistance and was a nurse. She had to escort together with a doctor the more dead then alive deportees in the ‘hospital’ car. Just before she went into the car she was warned by the Jewish camp doctor of the Dossin barracks, who gave her a knife with the words: “Cut the bars, jump, because they will burn you“.
Régine, had to fight off the accompanying doctor in her car who was trying to prevent her from sawing through the bars of the small vent in order to escape. She jumped out the very same moment the train was attacked and stopped.

Then when the train stops, the attacker Robert Maistriau cuts the barbed wire on the sliding door of one of the cars, opens the door and calls “Fliehen Sie, Fliehen Sie!” At first people are confused and scared – but then 17 people jumped out and escaped, while the Germans were shooting. He next starts working on a second car, but the train began moving…

Transport XX to Auschwitz – trailer

In every car the Germans had appointed one prisoner responsible for preventing and reporting attempts to escapes. Louis de Groot – was one of these appointed ‘guards’ and was told “When anybody escapes, or you let anybody escape, everybody is killed!“. He, however, calmed down the scared people in his car. “They did not want to let me out of that – they were so afraid – that I – that we will be killed. So, I say ‘no – I arrange it for you’. I was quite an acrobat. So, we broke open that little air thing…“. He, together with some others managed to break open the little ventilation window. Louis then took a girl with him when he jumped – together with his brother Abraham and two boys.

In a scene from the film “Transport XX to Auschwitz,” Simon Gronowski stands at the spot where he jumped from the train 70 years ago – near the village of Kuttekoven. (Photo: Marc Van Roosbroeck/Michel van der Burg)

Simon Gronowski was only 11 years old when he was helped by his mother to jump from the train, and survived – unlike his mother who was gassed at Auschwitz. Simon was ‘lucky’. He was taken care of by the Belgian gendarme Jean Aerts and his wife, and not betrayed. That salvation was no exception: almost all refugees from the deportation train survived with the help of the Belgian population. Simon Gronowski was the youngest person to ever escape from a death train.

Lilly Wolkenfeld Schwartz had to push her Belgian friend Lilian to jump from the train. The train was moving fast when guys in the compartment of Lilly and her friends Bella and Lilian managed to open the doors. Bella and a lot of other people jumped, but Lilian said “…I can’t“. So Lilly pushed her to jump, and jumped after her. Lilly: “…and as I jumped I had a bullet here, which I found out later…”

Both Gunther Mendel and Marie (Neufeld) Mendel too managed to escape via the little ventilation window and jumped. Gunther: “I went out foot first…you have to throw yourself backwards, because the train was doing maybe 30-40 miles an hour..“. Marie: “..I jumped out – I let myself out – and I lost a shoe…”

Louis Micheels had thought of escaping, but as he was responsible for the seriously ill patients in the hospital car – then thought “how can I, as a doctor in charge of patients in this transport, how can I desert and escape?“. Upon arrival in Auschwitz however “my patients were dragged out, thrown on the truck like they were cattle, dead cattle..”

When Willy Berler was about to jump off the train, he saw that the unfortunate man who had jumped before him, was stuck to the train with his head crushed like a melon. Willy did not jump. “If I had known …. about Auschwitz …. I would have jumped.“

These are remarkable stories of the heroic rescue, escapes, and escape attempts from Transport XX to Auschwitz, which occurred on April 19, 1943 – the first night of Passover – when, at the same time, also the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began, some 720 miles away.

During the Shoah, the Nazis, in their quest for the ‘final solution’ of the Jewish question, utilized thousands of such trains from Germany and the occupied countries to transport 3,000,000 Jews to the concentration and death camps.

Film festivals & holocaust education programs

This documentary is available – distributed for free – for Jewish and other film festivals as well as holocaust education programs.

USA. Florida. October 27, 2012. Richard Bloom (director) speaking at the premiere of the film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival at the Cinema Paradiso. In the audience also director Karen Lynne Bloom (bottom left in picture). Image Reference: BUM10006V02 (michelvanderburg.com)

April 2013 — Early this month screenings at Jewish community centers followed in commemorations of Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – in Florida and the Greater Washington area

May 2014 – Festival of Tolerance in Zagreb, Croatia, May 18-24, Cinema Tuškanac – European Theater Premiere. Screening with both Croatian subtitles and English subtitles. The audience gave the film a very good average grade of 4.3 (out of 5).

European Theater Premiere of “Transport XX to Auschwitz” at the Festival of Tolerance in Zagreb, Croatia, May 18-24, Cinema Tuškanac

Jan 2015 – Brussels, Belgium. On January 31, the historic Atelier Marcel Hastir hosted the special screening (and Belgium premiere) of the documentary « Transport XX to Auschwitz » for International Holocaust Remembrance Day – 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp on January 27, 1945. The screening was introduced by filmmaker Michel van der Burg with a few words on the history of this special place – the Atelier Marcel Hastir – and the important role of the Atelier in the planning of the attack on the 20th train to Auschwitz.

After the screening in a discussion lead by Laura Muris (Atelier Marcel Hastir), Michel van der Burg talked with the audience about the film, about these people’s stories, and also the many new stories that emerged since the film came out – more on this site via this link.

March 2015 – JIFF , Australia – The Holocaust Film Series 2015 of the Jewish International Film Festival in Australia hosted the Australian premiere Sunday March 15, 2015 simultaneously in both Sydney (Event Cinemas, Bondi Junction) and Melbourne (Classic Cinemas). In both cities the film was shown a second time – in Sydney March 24 , and in Melbourne March 19, 2015. The audience feedback was overwhelming.

Holocaust Film Series 2015 of the Jewish International Film Festival in Australia

April 2015 – Screening on April 12, 2015 at Young Israel of Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Florida , USA with guest speakers Philippe Renette (Belgium) and filmmaker Richard Bloom (USA) to lead a discussion and Q&A after the film screening. The event – as part of the Holocaust Remembrance Week – was hosted by The Foundation for Holocaust Education Projects & Young Israel of Hollywood-Fort Lauderdale. More info on this site. This screening was in the news before in the Joyce Kaufman talk show on the 850 WFTL Florida radio station on March 25, 2015 (see report on this site).

April 2015 – Atelier Marcel Hastir (Brussels, Belgium) showings on demand on a large-screen display from April 11 to April 19 2015 on weekend days 14-20h with a Q&A by the team of the Atelier. More info on this site.

New stories … reactions

When Rachelle Bashe was a child, she dreamed about her father’s escape from a train carrying Belgian Jews to Auschwitz. Bashe, 77, of Boynton Beach was reminded of her dreams when a reporter called to talk about the documentary film “Transport XX to Auschwitz.” The film will be screened at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival later this month and in early November.

“It’s just unbelievable,” an emotional Bashe said when she realized that her father was one of the more than 200 persons on the 20th train convoy who escaped on the night of April 19, 1943 during a daring attack by three Resistance fighters carrying a red railroad lamp, a pair of pliers and a pistol.

Bashe said her mother told her that her father escaped from a train but never returned home. She eventually learned that he was captured later, survived three concentration camps and died in 1945 during a death march. “It does help in a way that I am realizing that what is in my subconscious is not really a dream or a nightmare,” Bashe said.

April 28, 2014 – Isabella Weinreb Castegnier was three-months pregnant that night on April 1943 in Belgium, when she jumped from the fast moving 20th Train heading for Auschwitz. Isabella escaped with a broken wrist and bruises all over her body, but otherwise without major injuries. Her daughter Viviane – meaning “full of life”, and named so for her will to live and hold tight in her mother’s womb – was born six months later on October 30, 1943.
Last month, Viviane first learned about our documentary “Transport XX to Auschwitz” and e-mailed me…”I couldn’t believe while searching online that I would find an actual movie made, telling the story of this famous, unique escape from a death-train!” After watching the documentary, she wrote to me “it was so well-made…I even wished it were longer”…Viviane also shared with me that at one point in the film, she got tears in her eyes, as her mother’s face appeared in a flash on the screen, while Lilly (Wolkenfeld Schwartz) – her mother’s friend was telling the story…”and Bella jumped” … this was so unexpected, she said “it took me by surprise!”
One year ago – on Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 7, 2013 – her mother passed away at the age of 93. Today, 71 years after that unique escape, on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2014, and her mother’s yahrzeit, Viviane shares her story here on this site. Continue reading >

– May 19, 2014 – Embassy of the Netherlands in Croatia :In the coming days several Dutch films are scheduled at the 8th edition of the Jewish Film Festival (18 – 24 May) in Zagreb! The event features a broad selection of music, round tables, theater and film. Dutch (co)productions include:Wednesday 21/5: “Broken Silence” and “Sammy”Thursday 22/5: “Transport XX to Auschwitz” and “Blind Love” Saturday 24/5: “Heli”

– May 28, 2014. Zagreb. Festival of Tolerance. The audience at the Festival of Tolerance valued the film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” with a very good average grade of 4.3 (out of 5).

Aug 30, 2014 – The “Transport XX to Auschwitz” film is now included – for future screenings – in the collections of the Atelier Marcel Hastir (Rue du Commerce 51, Brussels, Belgium) and the Fondation Robert Maistriau (Belgium/Congo)Atelier Marcel HastirFondation Robert Maistriau

March 25, 2015 – The Florida radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman and holocaust education director Avi Mizrachi discussed the upcoming special screening of the film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” – a transcription (in part) and podcast link are available on this site via this link.

April 19, 2015. A new edition of our documentary “Transport XX to Auschwitz” is now publicly available online. This new – 2nd – edition with the YouTube title Transport XX to Auschwitz – current version has the latest statistics on the escapes and other updates available. This second edition is now embedded above in this post , and replaces the first edition posted here exactly two years ago, on April 19, 2013.